Ocean Eyes
by Thalia the Huntress
Summary: They often wondered what could have happened, if there had been a resistance back then, if they had been further into the games. Could they have saved any of them? Or were they all doomed to die here anyways. AU sequel to I Am The Mockingjay. Haysilee!
1. Endings

**Here, for your reading enjoyment, is my little AU dream-sequel to I am the Mockingjay! It will be two chapters long, and, while it won't be considered canon (in my Haymitch/Maysilee series (except for the very end and the flashbacks) OR the real one (duh)), it is a happy ending per-se, and will be told from Maysilee's point of view. Whether you want to read it is optional, but it would be cool if you did! Oh, and also, there are little bits and pieces that do relate back to IATM, like the odd hospital scene, and other stuff, which were written back when these would have been the last two chapters of IATM. And you will be very confused if you don't read IATM first, 'kay? Oh, and flashbacks (both old ones from IATM, and new ones which would have occurred at times between or during breaks in chapters) are in italics!**

Heaven. My first thought when I opened my eyes was that it was very white here, in heaven. My second thought was that the constant, steady beep that was ringing through the room was annoying. And my third thought? If this is heaven, why does it look like an infirmary.

My eyes floated around the room, and my memories slowly filtered back through what must be my drug-induced haze. The Hunger Games. Haymitch. Pain... My hand flew to my neck and I was surprised to find the skin there was intact, and a pulse beat under my skin. I was alive.

I stared around the windowless room, my eyes slowly taking in the beeping machines, the white wall, floors and ceiling, the bed I was laying in, and the empty beds around me. Knowing I was totally alone scared me a bit, so I swung my legs out of the bed and rested them on the floor before heaving myself up to walk across the room. On the table beside one of the other beds I found a hand mirror, and quickly sat down to look at myself. The bruises and scars I had accumulated during the Hunger Games had disappeared, and the only indication I had ever been close to death was the slightly pink skin of my neck. As I continued to survey my reflection I saw in the mirror that the door had swung open and a tall man was watching me intently.

"Hello." I turned around to face him.

"Hi." I responded, uncertain.

"Ms. Donner, I'm Dr. Hart." He looked familiar, and suddenly the memory came back to me like a wave.

_"Experimental... Don't know... Maybe..."_

"You." I hissed, "You're the doctor from the Capitol. Where am I? Is this another one of your sick schemes?"

The man merely chucked and shook his head.

"Oh, Ms. Donner. Can I call you Maysilee?" I glared at him. "You have no idea do you?"

"I have no idea about what? Where am I." I stood up, and started walking toward the man.

"Why you, my dear, are in District 13."

...

It takes hours before I could fully understand what the doctor was trying to say to me.

"One more time? Just in case?" I pleaded.

"Alright." He sighed. "You're in District 13, underground, where we went after the bombing during the war. Understand?"

I nodded.

"We have people positioned all over the Capitol." He paused. "No one who is very high up, at least not yet, but we're working on it. We even got a spy on the Gamemaker's committee this year." He smiled, and continued. "Obviously you know I was a doctor at the Training Centre, but when each of the participants came in for their checkups we implanted a device that would be connected to the tracker. We would be watching the Games, one of us designated to follow each of you, and when it came time for each of you to die, from one fatal wound or another, we would switch on the device, and it would release a chemical into your bloodstream that would slow your heart to a point where the tracker would no longer pick it up, the cannon would fire, we'd be standing by to pick you up, get you out of there and start operating, under the guise of cleaning you up and sending you home. Then, we'd pretend to pack you in boxes and ship the to your parents, when all the while the real tributes would be on a hovercraft to District 13."

"I think I understand now." The pieces were slowly starting to fall into place, and comprehension was slowly dawning.

Amused, the doctor kept talking. "Of course, some of the injuries were to severe to save..." The doctor trailed off. "Yours was one of the most severe we were able to save, because the drugs stopped you from losing too much blood."

I smiled a bit, happy to be alive.

The good doctor stood. "I'll leave you to get your rest now, Maysilee."

He paused at the door, and a sudden realization caused my stomach to clench. "Wait Dr. Hart."

Turning slowly, the doctor peered at me in surprise.

"Do you... Can you tell me... Well... The thing is..."

The doctor sighed. "What is it Ms. Donner?"

"Who won?" The words tumbled out of my mouth.

Dr. Hart thought for a long moment. "Oh, yes... The Victor was... Oh, what was his name? Your friend, with the dark hair."

I slowly relaxed and sank back into the pillows. "Haymitch." I breathed his name.

"Yes, that was it." The doctor nodded and headed out the door.

"Good night Ms. Donner." The door closed firmly behind him, and I was left staring at the white room in wonder and amazement.

...

The sunless days and moonless nights soon started to blend together as I stayed in the infirmary, waiting for the doctor to give me the OK to leave. When that day finally came, I was shocked to see the smooth rock walls of the cave system that made up District 13. Longing to escape it's confines, I spent my days roaming endlessly around the winding corridors, into rooms long ago deserted by people, and into dark, treacherous corridors, descending deeper and deeper into the Earth. Still, I could never find what I was searching for: a way out, where I could see the sunlight, breathe fresh air, and feel like myself again.

I spent my nights lying awake in my room,staring at the smooth rock ceiling and wondering how everyone was doing, back in the real world. How long had I been down here? Had there been another Games? Had more people died? Unable to sleep one night I rose out of bed and started to wander through the long caves. The further I got into the twisting system, the calmer I got, and I started to relax, so I eventually turned back. About 100 meters back into the caves, I faced a fork in the tunnel. Which way had I come from? Confused, I stared in silence for a few minutes. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right Left. Right Left. RightLeft. RightLeft. RightLeftRightLeftRight. Finally, frustrated, I headed down the tunnel to the right. I walked for what seemed like hours before I came to a dead end. I stared around in the dim light of the cavern, then sat down, exhausted.

As I sat in silence, I couldn't help but feel that something in the cavern was out of place. Then it hit me. There was light in here, a cavern, deep under ground. Which meant... Somewhere in here there was a way out! I frantically scrambled around the room, looking for the crack where light could be coming from. I searched everywhere, side to side, up and down, until, finally, I spotted the dim light coming from a hole in the wall of the cavern, four or five meters up from where I was standing. Calmly, I walked over to the wall underneath the opening and tried to jump. Not surprisingly, it was way too high for me to reach, so i started rubbing the smooth wall. Directly underneath the opening, I found roughly carved footholds, and knew I wasn't the first person to ever find this place. Silently, I scrambled up the wall, and dragged myself onto the ledge where the wall opened up into another tunnel.

I stood up, and walked along the path, toward the light that I knew would be at the other end of the small tunnel I was standing in. Then I saw it. The full moon hung low over the trees, casting a silvery light all over the rocks and boulders, strewn over the grass in the small concealed clearing. It was night, and it had been so long since I had seen it and basked in the breeze and the smell of a real forest, not the fake manufactured one of the arena. Walking across the clearing I sank into the grass and leaned up against a rock, staring at the night sky. My eyes roamed for a while, taking in the stars, finding the glittering figures which formed in the constellations that Haymitch had shown me in the realfake stars of the arena.

_He pointed to the sky. "See that one, right there? The one with the three stars that look like a belt? That's Orion the Hunter."_

_I nodded, taking in the vague figure. "Orion?"_

_He glanced at me sideways. "Yeah, Orion. He's drawing his arrow."_

_I smiled. "I see it. He's defending himself."_

_"Just like us." We laughed._

_"Show me another one." I demanded._

_He smirked, pleased with the fact that he, the boy from the Seam, knew more than I did. "See the one that looks like a pot?" He pointed again. "Up there?"_

_I followed his finger to the set of stars he was pointing at, and saw the constellation._

_He shifted his finger again, pointing a bit higher up, at a bright star. "That's the North Star, and that," He shifted his finger higher once more, "the one that's upside dowm, is the Little Dipper."_

_We smiled again and settled back to enjoy one little bit of peace in the arena._

My eyes searched the sky, finding each of the constellations. I smiled, thinking of how proud Haymitch must be of himself. I wondered if he missed me as much as I missed him. And I thought of my sister, who must be so lost now that I am gone, and I so badly wanted to run until I reached our old house in District 12. I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear the person approach me from the entrance to the cave.

"Well, I was wondering if you were ever going to come out of hiding." A familiar voice rang through the night and I jolted up, looking at a face I thought I would never see again.

_"Are you scared at all?" She didn't look haughty and regal as she looked at me since the moment we had been chosen as tributes, but instead she looked just as scared as I felt inside._

_I looked back at her and, just for a moment, I let all my emotions show on my face before pushing them back down. "Of course I am." I wanted it to come out strong, but instead I sounded weak and frightened._

_For the first time in a very long time Helena Mitchell smiled at me. _

"Helena!" I jumped up and flung my arms around her solid, definitely living form. "They saved you too?"

"Yeah. Turned out that smelling that flower was probably the best thing that happened to me in that arena. It knocked me out so much that the cannon went off, and then they just whisked me off to District 13, woke me up, and sent me on my way."

I smiled at her, glad that I had at least one friend here. "Things definitely got interesting in the arena after you died."

She giggled. "Yeah, I know. Someone tapped into an old TV feed, and we watched the Games." She shivered. "I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to save you. But they did! And Haymitch won."

"And Haymitch won." I echoed.

"It was amazing, May. He was at the very end of the arena, and she hurled an ax at him but he ducked and it went over the cliff, but there must have been a force field at the bottom or something because it bounced back up and... And..." She trailed off, leaving the unspoken image hanging in the air. "Well, you know what happened."

"Yeah."

"He looked kind of sad, like he wished it hadn't been him." Helena whispered.

"Survivor's guilt, I guess. Though he doesn't know that we're here." I grimaced at the thought of Haymitch thinking that we were all dead. "Speaking of that, how many people from our Games are here?"

"Alive?" I nodded. "Well, I'm not 100% sure. I know I saw that red-head from District 11, the one from training that day, and Red. Probably more though. I think I heard some one say 20."

I nodded sedately again. Helena hugged me again. "I'll let you stay out here and think a bit. This place really helped me when I first got here."

She turned away and headed toward the entrance back into District 13. I watched her disappear into the crevice.

"Oh, and May?" Helena stuck her head back out.

"Yeah?"

"It's going to be all right now." She smiled.

I sank into the grass and leaned back against a rock, staring at the stars again. _It's going to be all right. _I really had no clue what was going to happen, but for now the words gave me a small piece of hope to hold on to. So, I looked up at the stars, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

...

In the grass of a arena far away the girl jerked awake and sat up. The boy next to her, keeping guard over her and himself stared at her.

"Did you hear something Maysilee?" He hissed.

"No, sorry Haymitch. I'm going back to sleep now." She lowered herself back to the grass and rolled onto her back, staring at the realfake stars, which they had watched together only one night ago. Six left, four, if you didn't include them. She knew she would have to leave him soon, and one of them would die, maybe both. But for now, she just started up at the realfake stars and wished with all of her heart that they could have had a chance.

...

**On a side note, this was written over a HUGE period of time. The A/N at the top was written on February 3, and this was written today, because I just got stuck. That definitely won't happen with then next chapter which, funny enough, was the reason I started writing this story waaaaay long ago. Anyway, hope you liked it! There is going to be one more chapter and, for fair warning, there is going to be quite a large time jump in between this chapter and the next. And yes, the next chapter is a dream too, but the dreamer of the dream may or may not be the same person. I'm not going to say. As always, R&R! (And flames are gladly accepted, as long as they are constructive).**


	2. Beginnings

**So, it's been a while ;) Sorry this took so long, but feel free to be very mad in the reviews. You should probably read my other story, _I Am the Mockingjay_ before this one for it to make sense :) Thanks for reading :)**

* * *

><p><em>25 Years Later...<em>

Dawn comes early these days.

I sat up and looked around the barren room, then closed my eyes again. I wanted to pretend that, just for one second, I was home. But I wasn't, so I pushed myself up and shook my head. The last few days had been surreal, what with everyone from District 12 pouring into 13, taking up rooms, and space. I had wanted to go out and look, see the people I hadn't seen in so long, but Coin had put a very effective stop to that, ordering the surviving tributes, ranging from Helena, Red and I as the eldest to a little bird-like girl, the youngest, to stay away from them.

I sighed and flopped down on my bed, only to be awoken again a short time later by a firm knock on my door. "One minute." I called, and pulled on a tank top and pants before slipping my regulation boots on and throwing the door wide open. Helena stood there, looking vaguely excited.

"What?" I run a hand through my hair and squint at the small child balanced on her hip. I bit back a grin, as I did every time I saw the child. It was still crazy to me that Helena had married Red, let alone had kids with him. I forced my face into a detached expression and waited for Helena's answer.

"It's over." She said breathlessly. "It's over."

"What's over?" I stepped back and ushered her into my small room before closing the door.

"Red just told me. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but he, well we, thought you should know." She rambled.

"Helena, you're making no sense." I told her.

She shook her head. "Of course not. I'm sorry. The quell is over, they did it. The arena blew up, and now Plutarch and the others are on their way back here with some of the tributes. I don't know who, but they're coming. They're landing in an hour."

I sat down, suddenly weak. "Haymitch."

"Haymitch." Helena confirmed.

I jumped up and looked around for a sweater, anything, to put on. "I'm going down there."

Helena laid a firm hand on my shoulder. "May. You can't. You know you can't. Tribute or not, Coin would kill you if she found you."

I stopped and looked at Helena pointedly. "I've been waiting for this for _twenty five years_, Hel. There's nothing she can do to stop me."

Helena gave me a dirty look. "You've been waiting for that long, and I'm not you, but I would rather be alive to see him in twenty five years and six hours than dead and not see him at all."

I sighed. "You have a point."

Helena looked back toward the door. "I have to go. I heard that they'e doing a room check for us like we're teenagers again, and Red can only lie about me being out to take the baby for a walk for so long." She turned and opened the door before smiling at me. "Later, May. You have time."

...

I flat out ignored Helena's warning, and an hour later, I found myself in the main hangar as a ship was lowered into the ground. Short of breath from the run, I ducked into the shadows, watching with keen eyes as the ship was prepared for landing. I touched down with a thud that was mirrored by my heart. They pull something that looks like an exit ramp up to the doors of the ship and they are flung open. Not surprisingly, Plutarch steps out first, looks back, and is quickly followed by a few other people.

Next come the tributes, in various stages of shock, some injured more gravely than others.

He stepped out last, holding the limp, sleeping form of the girl I assume to be our Mockingjay. Lia's daughter. The girl who wore my pin. I looked up into his eyes and he stops dead, staring back. But he shakes his head and keeps moving down, cradling the girl, and I realize that he hasn't seen me after all.

A smile played across my lips, as Helena's earlier words came back to me. _Later, May. You have time._

I slipped out of the shadows and made my way to the door, stopping only once to look back. As I did, I thought I saw Haymitch's eyes flicker back to the shadows. I turned and left, before I ran back.

I made my way through the winding passages until I was outside, and collapsed down onto the ground, worn out. Twenty five years was a long time. I lay there, drifting in and out of daydreams until the sun began to slip down behind the trees, casting me back into shadows. Voices floated around me on the wind, and I smile. The voices got louder, and I jumped up, realizing that they were coming from inside the tunnels, not my imagination. My eyes darted around, looking for a place to hide, and I jump behind a tree.

"Look, sweetheart, I have no idea where you're taking me, but I can assure you, I don't want to be there." Haymitch's sarcastic voice leaped out at me as he stepped out and turned, blocking whoever he was with in the tunnels.

"Trust me, you want to be here Haymitch." Helena's voice replied calmly, and a huge grin spread on my face. I was about to step out from behind the tree when he replied, and I felt my heart sink down into my boots.

"How do you know my name?" He asked suspiciously, and I saw him move aside. I bit my lip. Twenty five years _was _a long time. Would he recognize me like I had recognized him?

Helena, seizing her opportunity, stepped out of the tunnels. Though Haymitch was facing away from me, I could see Helena's face highlighted perfectly by the golden light of the setting sun. A sad smile was spread across her face. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

He is silent. Of course he doesn't recognize her. I looked down, saddened, but one reverently whispered word sent my head flying back up. "Helena."

A true smile spreads across Helena's face then, one that sends me right back to the training arena. "You do remember me." She replied.

"How..." He paused. "It's true, isn't it. I heard the rumours. That they were saving tributes when they could. They saved you. They-" He stopped speaking and looked around, then laughed harshly. "But your injuries weren't bad. You just smelled the poison. They wouldn't have been able to do something if the injuries were too bad. They wouldn't have been able to do anything for _her_."

Vaguely, I realized he was talking about me, but my body was already on autopilot, stepping out from the shadows and into the golden halo of the setting sun.

Helena opened her mouth to reply, but caught sight of me first. "So you were out here. I wasn't sure."

Haymitch began to turn, and the confusion was evident on his face, until he saw me and it all slid off into a blank, unreadable expression.

"Haymitch." I whispered, standing still.

I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't what happened. His face twisted into a horrible expression and he scoffed. "It's not you." I took a tentative step forward, but stopped when he continued, his voice taking on a bitter tone. "It's never you. It's just the alcohol or my imagination, or your sister or Madge, but never you. It can't be you."

I look into his eyes and take in the broken gaze before I close the distance between us and gently touch his arm. "Haymitch. It's _me_."

He looked searchingly into my eyes for a long minute, then pulled me into a hug. "It's you. _Maysilee_." He murmured.

"It's me." I confirmed as I wrapped my arms around him. Helena sensed that it was her time to leave, and began to turn back into the tunnels. I mouthed _thank you_ to her and she flashed me a quick smile before disappearing. Haymitch pulled back and looked me deep in the eyes once more before he leaned in to kiss me with all the built up emotions of twenty five years.

"You died in my arms." He muttered as he pulled away, and I laid my hands on his cheeks to make sure he was looking into my eyes.

"There was nothing I wanted more than to tell you that wasn't true."

He averted his eyes, then mumbled something.

"What?" I asked gently.

"Did you mean it?" He snapped.

"Mean wha-" I stopped, remembering.

_I whispered, quietly enough that I knew the microphones would miss it, and he would be the only person to ever hear it. "I love you."_

"I meant it. I loved you." I told him. "I still do."

He brought his eyes back up to mine, and a slight smile ghosted across his lips. "I love you too, Maysilee."

Then he leaned in and kissed me again. This time, it felt like the beginning.

...

In a nearby house, the boy, no, the man woke with a start, a knife clenched in his flailing fist. He looked around, alcohol drenched brain trying to see something, anything. The ghosts drifted back into the shadows, leaving him alone again. He closed his eyes, and colours flashed everywhere. Gold, blue, _red_. He sat up again, reached under his bed and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid.

It burned going down, and he closed his eyes again. There were no colours this time, just darkness, the way he liked it.

He sighed, and whispered softly the words he could never seem to get out without the bottle.

"I love you Maysilee." He repeated.

From somewhere far away, he thought he heard her ghost reply.


End file.
